V. I. Lenin

Once Again On The Trade Unions,

The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin[1]

Delivered:25 January, 1921First Published:January 1921 by the Press Department of the Moscow Soviet of Workers’, Peasants’ and Red Army Deputies; Published according to the pamphlet text collated with the manuscriptSource:Lenin’sCollected Works, 1st English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965,Volume 32, page 70-107Translated:Yuri SdobnikovTranscription\HTML Markup:David Walters&R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of theGNU Free Documentation License

The Party discussion and the factional struggle,
    which is of a type that occurs before a congress—before and
    in connection with the impending elections to the Tenth Congress
    of the R.C.P.—are waxing hot. The first factional
    pronouncement, namely, the one made by Comrade Trotsky on behalf
    of “a number of responsible workers” in his
    “platform pamphlet” (The Role and Tasks of the
    Trade Unions, with a preface dated December 25, 1920), was
    followed by a sharp pronouncement (the reader will see from what
    follows that it was deservedly sharp) by the Petrograd
    organisation of the R.C.P. (“Appeal to the Party”,
    published inPetrogradskaya Pravda[2]on
    January 6, 1921, and in the Party’s Central Organ, the
    MoscowPravda, on January 13, 1921). The Moscow Committee
    then came out against the Petrograd organisation (in the same
    issue ofPravda). Then appeared a verbatim report,
    published by the bureau of the R.C.P. group of the All-Russia
    Central Council of Trade Unions, of the discussion that took place
    on December 30, 1920, at a very large and important Party meeting,
    namely, that of the R.C.P. group at the Eighth Congress of
    Soviets. It is entitledThe Role of the Trade Unions in
    Production(with a preface dated January 6, 1921). This, of
    course, is by no means all of the discussion material. Party
    meetings to discuss these issues are being held almost
    everywhere. On December 30, 1920, I spoke at a meeting in
    conditions in which, as I put it then, I “departed from the
    rules of procedure”, i.e., in conditions in which I could
    not take part in the discussion or hear the preceding and
    subsequent speakers. I shall now try to make amends and express
    myself in a more “orderly” fashion.

The Danger Of Factional 
      Pronouncements To The Party

Is Comrade Trotsky’s pamphletThe Role and Tasks of
    the Trade Unionsa factional pronouncement? Irrespective of
    its content, is there any danger to the Party in a pronouncement
    of this kind? Attempts to hush up this question are a particularly
    favourite exercise with the members of the Moscow Committee (with
    the exception of Comrade Trotsky, of course), who see the
    factionalism of the Petrograd comrades, and with Comrade Bukharin,
    who, however, felt obliged, on December 30, 1920, to make the
    following statement on behalf of the “buffer
    group”:

“. . . when a train seems to be heading
    for a crash, a buffer is not a bad thing at all” (report of
    the December 30,1920 discussion, p. 45).

So there is some danger of a crash. Can we conceive of
    intelligent members of the Party being indifferent to the question
    of how, where and when this danger arose?

Trotsky’s pamphlet opens with the statement that
    “it is the fruit of collective work”, that “a
    number of responsible workers, particularly trade unionists
    (members of the Presidium of the All-Russia Central Council of
    Trade Unions, the Central Committee of the Metalworkers’
    Union, Tsektran and others)” took part in compiling it, and
    that it is a “platform pamphlet”. At the end of thesis
    4 we read that “the forthcoming Party Congress will have tochoose[Trotsky’s italics] between the two trends
    within the trade union movement”.

If this is not the formation of a faction by a member of the
    Central Committee, if this does not mean “heading for a
    crash”, then let Comrade Bukharin, or anyone of his
    fellow-thinkers, explain to the Party any other possible meaning
    of the words “factionalism “, and the Party
    “seems to be heading for a crash”. Who can be more
    purblind than men wishing to play the “buffer” andclosing their eyestosucha “danger of a
    crash”?

Just imagine: after the Central Committee had spent two plenary
    meetings (November 9 and December 7) in an unprecedentedly long,
    detailed and heated discussion of Comrade Trotsky’s original
    draft theses and of the entire trade union policy that he
    advocates for the Party, one member of the Central Committee,one out of nineteen, forms a group outside the Central
    Committee and presents its “collective work” as a
    “platform”, inviting the Party Congress “to
    choose betweentwotrends”! This, incidentally,
    quite apart from the fact that Comrade Trotsky’s
    announcement of two and only two trends on December 25, 1920,
    despite Bukharin’s coming out as a “buffer” on
    November 9, is a glaring exposure of the Bukharin group’s
    true role as abettors of the worst and most harmful sort of
    factionalism. But I ask any Party member: Don’t you find
    this attack and insistence upon’choosing” between two
    trends in the trade union movement rather sudden? What is there
    for us to do but stare in astonishment at the fact that after
    three years of the proletarian dictatorship even one Party member
    can be found to “attack” the two trends issuein
    this way?

Nor is that all. Look at the factional attacks in which this
    pamphlet abounds. In the very first thesis we find a threatening
    “gesture” at “certain workers in the trade union
    movement” who are thrown “back to trade-unionism, pure
    and simple, which the Party repudiated in principle long ago
    “ (evidently the Party is represented by only one member of
    the Central Committee’s nineteen). Thesis 8 grandiloquently
    condemns “the craft conservatism prevalent among the top
    trade union functionaries” (note the truly bureaucratic
    concentration of attention on the “top”!). Thesis 11
    opens with the astonishingly tactful, conclusive and business-like
    (what is the most polite word for it?) “hint” that the
    “majority of the trade unionists . . . give only formal,
    that is,verbal, recognition” to the resolutions of
    the Party’s Ninth Congress.

We find that we have some very authoritative judges before us
    who say themajority(!) of the trade unionists give onlyverbalrecognition to the Party’s decisions.

Thesis 12 reads:

“. . . many trade unionists take an ever
      more aggressive and uncompromising stand against the prospect
      of’coalescence’. . . . Among them we find Comrades
      Tomsky and Lozovsky.

“What is more, many trade unionists,
    balking at the new tasks, and methods, tend to cultivate in their
    midst a spirit of corporative exclusiveness and hostility for the
    new men who are being drawn into the given branch of the economy,
    thereby actually fostering the survivals of craft-unionism among
    the organised workers.”

Let the reader go over these arguments carefully and ponder
    them. They simply abound in “gems”. Firstly, the
    pronouncement must be assessed from the standpoint of
    factionalism! Imagine what Trotsky would have said, and how he
    would have said it, if Tomsky had published a platform accusing
    Trotsky and “many” military workers of cultivating the
    spirit of bureaucracy, fostering the survivals of savagery,
    etc. What is the “role” of Bukharin, Preobrazhensky,
    Serebryakov and the others who fail to see—positively fail
    to note, utterly fail to note—the aggressiveness and
    factionalism of allthis, and refuse to see how much more
    factional it is than the pronouncement of the Petrograd
    comrades?

Secondly, take a closer look at the approach to the subject:
    many trade unionists “tend to cultivate in their midst a
    spirit”. . . . This is an out-and-out bureaucratic
    approach. The whole point, you see, is not the level of
    development and living conditions of the masses in their millions,
    but the “spirit” which Tomsky and Lozovsky tend to
    cultivate “in their midst”.

Thirdly, Comrade Trotsky has unwittingly revealed theessenceof the whole controversy which he and the
    Bukharin and Co. “buffer” have been evading and
    camouflaging with such care.

What is the point at issue? Is it the fact that many trade
    unionists are balking at the new tasks and methods and tend to
    cultivate in their midst a spirit of hostility for the new
    officials?

Or is it that the masses of organised workers are legitimately
    protesting and inevitably showing readiness to throw out the new
    officials who refuse to rectify the useless and harmful excesses
    of bureaucracy?

Is it that someone has refused to understand the “new
    tasks and methods”?

Or is it that someone is making a clumsy attempt to cover up
    his defence of certain useless and harmful excesses of bureaucracy
    with a lot of talk about new tasks and methods?

It is thisessenceof the dispute that the reader
    should bear in mind.

Formal Democracy and the Revolutionary
    Interest

“Workers’ democracy is free from fetishes”,
    Comrade Trotsky writes in his theses, which are the “fruit
    of collective work”. “Its sole consideration is the
    revolutionary interest” (thesis 23).

Comrade Trotsky’s theses have landed him in a mess. That
    part of them which is correct is not new and, what is more, turnsagainsthim. That which is new is all wrong.

I have written out Comrade Trotsky’s correct
    propositions. They turn against him not only on the point in
    thesis 23 (Glavpolitput) but on the others as well.

Under the rules of formal democracy, Trotskyhad a
    rightto come out with a factional platform even against the
    whole of the Central Committee. That is indisputable. What is also
    indisputable is that the Central Committee had endorsed this
    formal right by its decision on freedom of discussion adopted on
    December 24, 1920. Bukharin, the buffer, recognises this formal
    right for Trotsky, but not for the Petrograd organisation,
    probably because on December 30, 1920, he talked himself into
    “the sacred slogan of workers’ democracy”
    (verbatim report, p. 45). . . .

Well, and what about the revolutionary interest?

Will any serious-minded person who is not blinded by the
    factional egotism of Tsektran” or of the
    “buffer” faction, will anyone in his right mind say
    thatsucha pronouncement on the trade union issue bysucha prominent leader as Trotsky does promotethe
    revolutionary interest?

Can it be denied that, even if Trotsky’s “new tasks
    and methods” were as sound as they are in fact unsound (of
    which later), his very approach would be damaging to himself, the
    Party, the trade union movement, the training of millions of trade
    union members and the Republic?

It looks as if the kind Bukharin and his group call them selves
    a “buffer” because they have firmly decidednot to
    thinkabout the obligations this title imposes upon
    them.

The Political Danger Of Splits In The Trade Union
    Movement

Everyone knows that big disagreements sometimes grow out of
    minute differences, which may at first appear to be altogether
    insignificant. A slight cut or scratch, of the kind everyone has
    had scores of in the course of his life, may become very dangerous
    and even fatalifit festers andifblood
    poisoning sets in. This may happen in any kind of conflict, even a
    purely personal one. This also happens in politics.

Any difference, even an insignificant one, may become
    politically dangerous if it has a chance to grow into a split, and
    I mean the kind of split that will shake and destroy the whole
    political edifice, or lead, to use Comrade Bukharin’s
    simile, to a crash.

Clearly, in a country under the dictatorship of the
    proletariat, a split in the ranks of the proletariat, or between
    the proletarian party and the mass of the proletariat, is not just
    dangerous; it is extremely dangerous, especially when the
    proletariat constitutes a small minority of the population. And
    splits in the trade union movement (which, as I tried hard to
    emphasise in my speech on December 30, 1920, is a movement of the
    almost completely organised proletariat) mean precisely splits in
    the mass of the proletariat.

That is why, when the whole thing started at the Fifth
    All-Russia Conference of Trade Unions on November 2-6, 1920 (and
    that is exactly where it did start), and when right after the
    Conference—no, I am mistaken,duringthat
    Conference—Comrade Tomsky appeared before the Political
    Bureau in high dudgeon and, fully supported by Comrade Rudzutak,
    the most even-tempered of men, began to relate that at the
    Conference Comrade Trotsky had talked about “shaking
    up” the trade unions and that he, Tomsky, had opposed
    this—when that happened, I decided there and then that
    policy (i.e., the Party’s trade union policy) lay at the
    root of the controversy, and that Comrade Trotsky, with his
    “shake-up” policy against Comrade Tomsky, was entirely
    in the wrong. For,even if the “shake-up”policy were partly justifiedby the “new tasks and
    methods” (Trotsky’s thesis 12), it cannot be tolerated
    at the present time, and in the present situation, because it
    threatens a split.

It now seems to Comrade Trotsky that it is “an utter
    travesty “ to ascribe the “shake-up-from-above “
    policy to him (L. Trotsky, “A Reply to the Petrograd
    Comrades”,PravdaNo. 9, January 15, 1921). But
    “shake-up” is a real “catchword”, not only
    in the sense that after being uttered by Comrade Trotsky at the
    Fifth All-Russia Conference of Trade Unions it has, you might say,
    “caught on” throughout the Party and the trade
    unions. Unfortunately, it remains true even today in the much more
    profound sense that it alone epitomisesthe whole spirit,the whole trendof the platform pamphlet entitledThe
    Role and Tactics of the Trade Unions. Comrade Trotsky’s
    platform pamphlet is shot through with the spirit of the
    “shake-up-from-above” policy. Just recall the
    accusation made against Comrade Tomsky, or “many trade
    unionists”, that they “tend to cultivate in their
    midst a spirit of hostility for the new men”!

But whereas the Fifth All-Russia Conference of Trade Unions
    (November 2-6, 1920) only saw the makings of the atmosphere
    fraught with splits, the split within Tsektran became a fact in
    early December 1920.

This event is basic and essential to an understanding of the
    political essence of our controversies; and Comrades Trotsky and
    Bukharin are mistaken if they think hushing it up will help
    matters. A hush-up in this case does not produce a
    “buffer” effect but rouses passions; for the question
    has not only been placed on the agenda by developments, but has
    been emphasised by Comrade Trotsky in his platform pamphlet. It is
    this pamphlet that repeatedly, in the passages I have quoted,
    particularly in thesis 12, raises the question of whether the
    essence of the matter is that “many trade unionists tend to
    cultivate in their midst a spirit of hostility for the new
    men”, or that the “hostility” of themassesis legitimate in view of certain useless and
    harmful excesses of bureaucracy, for example, in Tsektran.

The issue was bluntly and properly stated by Comrade Zinoviev
    in his very first speech on December 30, 1920, when he said that
    it was “Comrade Trotsky’s immoderate adherents”
    who had brought about a split. Perhaps that is why Comrade
    Bukharin abusively described Comrade Zinoviev’s speech as
    “a lot of hot air”? But every Party member who reads
    the verbatim report of the December 30, 1920 discussion will see
    that that is not true. He will find that it is Comrade Zinoviev
    who quotes and operates with the facts, and that it is Trotsky and
    Bukharin who indulge most in intellectualist verbosity minus the
    facts.

When Comrade Zinoviev said, “Tsektran stands on feet of
    clay and has already split into three parts”, Comrade
    Sosnovsky interrupted and said:

“That is something you have encouraged
    “ (verbatim report, p. 15).

Now this is a serious charge. If it were proved, there would,
    of course, be no place on the Central Committee, in the R.C.P., or
    in the trade unions of our Republic for those who were guilty ofencouraging a spliteven in one of the trade
    unions. Happily, this serious charge was advanced in a thoughtless
    manner by a comrade who, I regret to say, has now and again been
    “carried away” by thoughtless polemics before
    this. Comrade Sosnovsky has even managed to insert “a fly in
    the ointment” of his otherwise excellent articles, say, on
    production propaganda, and this has tended to negate all its
    pluses. Some people (like Comrade Bukharin) are so happily
    constituted that they are incapable of injecting venom into their
    attacks even when the fight is bitterest; others, less happily
    constituted, are liable to do so, and do this all too
    often. Comrade Sosnovsky would do well to watch his step in this
    respect, and perhaps even ask his friends to help out.

But, some will say, the charge is there, even if it has been
    made in a thoughtless, unfortunate and patently
    “factional” form. In a serious matter, the badly
    worded truth is preferable to the hush-up.

That the matter is serious is beyond doubt, for, let me say
    this again, thecruxof the issue lies in this area to a
    greater extent than is generally suspected. Fortunately, we are in
    possession of sufficiently objective and conclusive facts to
    provide an answer insubstanceto Comrade
    Sosnovsky’s point.

First of all, there is on the same page of the verbatim report
    Comrade Zinoviev’s statement denying Comrade
    Sosnovsky’s allegation and making precise references to
    conclusive facts. Comrade Zinoviev showed that Comrade
    Trotsky’s accusation (made obviously, let me add, in an
    outburst of factional zeal) was quite a different one from Comrade
    Sosnovsky’s; Comrade Trotsky’s accusation was that
    Comrade Zinoviev’sspeech at the September All-Russia
    Conference of the R.C.P.had helped to bring about or had
    brought about the split. (This charge, let me say in parenthesis,
    is quite untenable, if only because Zinoviev’s September
    speech was approved in substance by the Central Committee and the
    Party, and there has been no formal protest against it since.)

Comrade Zinoviev replied that at the Central Committee meeting
    Comrade Rudzutak had used the minutes to prove that
    “long beforeany of my [Zinoviev’sl speeches
    and the All-Russia Conference the question [concerning certain
    unwarranted and harmful excesses of bureaucracy in Tsektran] had
    been examined in Siberia, on the Volga, in the North and in the
    South”.

That is an absolutely precise and clear-cut statement of
    fact. It was made by Comrade Zinoviev in his first speech before
    thousands of the most responsible Party members, and his facts
    werenotrefuted either by Comrade Trotsky, who spoketwice later, or by Comrade Bukharin, whoalso spoke
    later.

Secondly, the December 7, 1920resolution of the Central
    Committee’s Plenary Meeting concerning the dispute between
    the Communists working in water transport and the Communist group
    at the Tsektran Conference, given in the same verbatiln
    report, was an even more definite and official refutation of
    Comrade Sosnovsky’s charges. The part of the resolution
    dealing with Tsektran says:

“In connection with the dispute between
    Tsektran and the water transport workers, the Central Committee
    resolves: 1) To set up a Water Transport Section within the
    amalgamated Tsektran; 2) To convene a congress of railwaymen and
    water transport workers in February to hold normal elections to a
    new Tsektran; 3) To authorise the old Tsektran to function until
    then; 4) To abolish Glavpolitvod and Glavpolitput immediately and
    to transfer all their funds and resources to the trade union on
    normal democratic lines.”

This shows that the water transport workers, far from being
    censured, are deemed to berightin every essential. Yetnoneof the C.C. members who had signed the common
    platform of January 14, 1921 (except Kamenev) voted for the
    resolution. (The platform referred to is theRole and Tasks of
    the Trade Unions.Draft Decision of the Tenth Congress of
    the R.C.P., submitted to the Central Committee by a group of
    members of the Central Committee and the trade union
    commission. Among those who signed it was Lozovsky, a member of
    the trade union commission but not of the Central Committee. The
    others were Tomsky, Kalinin, Rudzutak, Zinoviev, Stalin, Lenin,
    Kamenev, Petrovsky and Artyom Sergeyev.)

This resolution was carriedagainstthe C.C. members
    listed above, that is, against our group, for we would have voted
    against allowing the old Tsektran to continue temporarily. Because
    we were sure to win, Trotsky was forced to vote for
    Bukharin’s resolution, as otherwise our resolution would
    have been carried. Comrade Rykov, who had beenforTrotsky in November, took part in the trade union
    commission’s examination of the dispute between Tsektran and
    the water transport workers in December, and saw that the latter
    were right.

To sum up: the December 7 majority in the Central Committee
    consisted of Comrades Trotsky, Bukharin, Preobrazhensky,
    Serebryakov and other C.C. members who are above suspicion of
    being biasedagainstTsektran. Yet the substance of their
    resolution did not censure the water transport workers but
    Tsektran, which they just stopped short of dissolving there and
    then. This proves Sosnovsky’s charge to be quite
    groundless.

There is one other point to be dealt with, if we are to leave
    no room for ambiguity. What were these “certain unwarranted
    and harmful excesses of bureaucracy” to which I have
    repeatedly referred? Isn’tthislast charge
    unsupported or exaggerated?

Once again it was Comrade Zinoviev who, in his very first
    speech on December 30, 1920, provided the answer which was as
    precise as one could wish. He quoted from Comrade Zoff’s
    water transport circular of May 3, 1920: “Committee
    treadmill abolished.”[3]Comrade Zinoviev was
    quite right in saying this was a fundamental error. It exemplified
    the unwarranted and harmful excesses of bureaucracy and the
    “appointments system”. But he said there and then that
    some appointees were “not half as experienced or as
    tried” as Comrade Zoff. I have heard Comrade Zoff referred
    to in the Central Committee as a most valuable worker, and this is
    fully borne out by my own observations in the Council of
    Defence. It has not entered anyone’s mind either to make
    scapegoats of such comrades or to undermine their authority (as
    Comrade Trotsky suggests, without the least justification, on page
    25 of his report). Their authority is not being undermined by
    those who try to correct the “appointees’”
    mistakes, but by those who would defend them even when they are
    wrong.

We see, therefore, that the danger of splits within the trade
    union movement was not imaginary but real. And we find that the
    actual disagreements really boiled down to a demand that certain
    unwarranted and harmful exccesses of bureaucracy, and the
    appointments system should not be justified or defended, but
    corrected. That is all there is to it.

Disagreements On Principle

There being deep and basic disagreements on principle—we
    may well be asked—do they not serve as vindication for the
    sharpest and most factional pronouncements? Is it possible to
    vindicate such a thing as a split, provided there is need to drive
    home some entirely new idea?

I believe it is, provided of course the disagreements are truly
    very deep and there is no other way to rectify a wrong trend in
    the policy of the Party or of the working class.

But the whole point is that there are no such
    disagreements. Comrade Trotsky has tried to point them out, and
    failed. A tentative or conciliatory approach had been
    possible—and necessary—beforethe publication
    of his pamphlet (December 25) (“such an approach is ruled
    out even in the case of disagreements and vague new tasks”);
    butafterits publication we had to say: Comrade Trotsky
    is essentially wrong on all his new points.

This is most evident from a comparison of his theses with
    Rudzutak’s which were adopted by the Fifth All Russia
    Conference of Trade Unions (November 2-6). I quoted the latter in
    my December 30 speech and in the January 21 issue ofPravda. They are-fuller and more correct than
    Trotsky’s, and wherever the latter differs from Rudzutak, he
    is wrong.

Take this famous “industrial democracy”, which
    Comrade Bukharin hastened to insert in the Central
    Committee’s resolution of December 7. It would, of course,
    be ridiculous to quibble about this ill-conceived brainchild
    (“tricky flourishes”), if it merely occurred in an
    article or speech. But, after all, it was Trotsky and Bukharin who
    put themselves into the ridiculous position byinsisting in
    their theseson this very term, which is the one feature that
    distinguishes their “platforms” from Rudzutak’s
    theses adopted by the trade unions.

The term is theoretically wrong. In the final analysis, every
    kind of democracy, as political superstructure in general (which
    must exist until classes have been abolished and a classless
    society established), serves production and is ultimately
    determined by the relations of production in a given society. It
    is, therefore, meaningless to single out “industrial
    democracy”, for this leads to confusion, and the result is a
    dummy. That is the first point.

The second is that if you look at Bukharin’s own
    explanation given in the resolution of the C.C. Plenary Meeting on
    December 7, which he drafted, you will find that he says:
    “Accordingly, the methods of workers’ democracy must
    be those of industrial democracy, which means. . . .” Note
    the “which means”! The fact is that Bukharin opens his
    appeal to the masses with such an outlandish term that he mustgive a gloss onit. This, I think, isundemocraticfrom the democratic standpoint. You must
    write for the masses without using terms that require a
    glossary. This is bad from the “production” standpoint
    because time is wasted in explaining unnecessary
    terms. “Which means,” he says, “that nomination
    and seconding of candidates, elections, etc., must proceed with an
    eye not only to their political staunchness, but also business
    efficiency, administrative experience, leadership, and proved
    concern for the working people’s material and spiritual
    interests.”

The reasoning there is obviously artificial and incorrect. For
    one thing, democracy is more than “nomination and seconding
    of candidates, elections, etc.” Then, again, not all
    elections should be held with an eye to political staunchness and
    business efficiency. Comrade Trotsky notwithstanding, an
    organisation of many millions must have a certain percentage of
    canvassers and bureaucrats (we shall not be able to make do
    without good bureaucrats for many years to come). But we do not
    speak of “canvassing” or “bureaucratic”
    democracy.

The third point is that it is wrong to consider only the
    elected, the organisers, the administrators, etc. After all, they
    constitute a minority of outstanding men. It is the mass, the rank
    and file that we must consider. Rudzutak has it in simpler, more
    intelligible and theoretically more correct terms (thesis 6):

“. . . it must be brought home to each
    participant in production that his production tasks are
    appropriate and important; that each must not only take a hand in
    fulfilling his assignments, but also play an intelligent part in
    correcting any technical and organisational defects in the sphere
    of production.

The fourth point is that “industrial democracy” is
    a term that lends itself to misinterpretation. It may be read as a
    repudiation of dictatorship and individual authority. It may be
    read as a suspension of ordinary democracy or a pretext for
    evading it. Both readings are harmful, and cannot be avoided
    without long special commentaries.

Rudzutak’s plain statement of the same ideas is more
    correct and more handy. This is indirectly confirmed by
    Trotsky’s parallel of “war democracy” which he
    draws with his own term in an article, “Industrial
    Democracy”, inPravdaof January 11, and which
    fails to refute that his term is inaccurate and inconvenient (for
    he side-steps the whole issue and fails to compare his theses with
    Rudzutak’s). Happily, as far as I can recall, we have never
    had any factional controversy over that kind of term.

Trotsky’s “production atmosphere” is even
    wider of the mark, and Zinoviev had good reason to laugh at
    it. This made Trotsky very angry, and he came out with this
    argument: “We once had a war atmosphere. . . . We must now
    have a production atmosphere and not only on the surface but deep
    down in the workers’ mass. This must be as intense and
    practical an interest in production as was earlier displayed in
    the fronts. . . .” Well, there you are: the message must be
    carried “deep down into the workers’ mass” in
    the language of Rudzutak’s theses, because “production
    atmosphere” will only earn you a smile or a shrug. Comrade
    Trotsky’s “production atmosphere” has
    essentially the same meaning as production propaganda, but such
    expressions must be avoided when production propaganda is
    addressed to the workers at large. The term is an example of how
    not to carry it on among the masses.

Politics And Economics. Dialectics And
    Eclecticism

It is strange that we should have to return to such elementary
    questions, but we are unfortunately forced to do so by Trotsky and
    Bukharin. They have both reproached me for “switching
    “ the issue, or for taking a “political”
    approach, while theirs is an “economic” one. Bukharin
    even put that in his theses and tried to “rise above”
    either side, as if to say that he was combining the two.

This is a glaring theoretical error. I said again in my speech
    that politics is a concentrated expression of economics, because I
    had earlier heard my “political” approach rebuked in a
    manner which is inconsistent and inadmissible for a
    Marxist. Politics must take precedence over economics. To argue
    otherwise is to forget the ABC of Marxism.

Am I wrong in my political appraisal? If you think so, say it
    and prove it. But you forget the ABC of Marxism when you say (or
    imply) that the political approach is equivalent to the
    “economic”, and that you can take “the one and
    the other”.

What the political approach means, in other words, is that the
    wrong attitude to the trade unions will ruin the Soviet power and
    topple the dictatorship of the proletariat. (In a peasant country
    like Russia, the Soviet power would surely go down in the event of
    a split between the trade unions and a Party in the wrong.) This
    proposition can (and must) be tested in substance, which means
    looking into the rights and wrongs of the approach and taking a
    decision. To say: I “appreciate” your political,
    approach, “but” it is only a political one
    and we “alsoneed an economic one”, is
    tantamount to saying: I “appreciate” your point that
    in taking that particular step you are liable to break your neck,butyou must also take into consideration that it is
    better to be clothed and well-fed than to go naked and hungry.

Bukharin’s insistence on combining the politicalandthe economic approach has landed him in theoreticaleclecticism.

Trotsky and Bukharin make as though they are concerned for the
    growth of production whereas we have nothing but formal democracy
    in mind. This picture is wrong, because theonlyformulation of the issue (which the Marxist standpointallows) is: without a correct political approach to the matter the
    given class will be unable to stay on top,and,consequently, will be incapable of solvingits
    production problemeither.

Let us take a concrete example. Zinoviev says: “By
    carrying things to a split within the trade unions, you are making
    a political mistake. I spoke and wrote about the growth of
    production back in January 1920, citing the construction of the
    public baths as an example.” Trotsky replies: “What a
    thing to boast of: a pamphlet with the public baths as an example
    (p. 29),’and not a single word’ about the tasks of the
    trade unions” (p. 22).

This is wrong. The example of the public baths is worth, you
    will pardon the pun, a dozen “production atmospheres”,
    with a handful of “industrial democracies” thrown
    in. It tells the masses, the whole bulk of them, what the trade
    unions are to do, and does this in plain and intelligible terms,
    whereas all these “production atmospheres” and
    “democracies” are so much murk blurring the vision of
    the workers’ masses, anddimmingtheir
    understanding.

Comrade Trotsky also rebuked me for not “saying a
    word” (p. 66) about “the role that has to be
    played—and is being played—by the levers known as the
    trade union apparatus”.

I beg to differ, Comrade Trotsky. By reading out
    Rudzutak’s theses in toto and endorsing them, I made a
    statement on the question that wasfuller,plainer,clearer and more correctthan all your
    theses, your report or co-report, and speech in reply to the
    debate. I insist that bonuses in kind and disciplinary
    comrades’ courts mean a great deal more to economic
    development, industrial management, and wider trade union
    participation in production than the absolutely abstract (and
    therefore empty) talk about “industrial democracy”,
    “coalescence”, etc.

Behind the effort to present the “production”
    standpoint (Trotsky) or to overcome a one-sided political approach
    and combine it with an economic approach (Bukharin) we find:

1)Neglect of Marxism, as expressed in the theoretically
    incorrect, eclectic definition of the relation between politics
    and economics;

2 )Defence or camouflage of the political mistake expressed in
    the shake-up policy, which runs through thewholeof
    Trotsky’s platform pamphlet, and which, unless it is
    admitted and corrected,leadsto the collapse of the
    dictatorship of the proletariat;

3)A step back in purely economic and production matters, and
    the question of how to increase production; it is, in fact, a step
    back from Rudzutak’spracticaltheses, with their
    concrete, vital and urgent tasks (develop production propaganda;
    learn proper distribution of bonuses in kind and correct use of
    coercion through disciplinary comrades’ courts), to the
    highbrow, abstract, “empty” and theoretically
    incorrect generaltheseswhichignoreall that
    is most practical and business-like.

That is where Zinoviev and myself, on the one hand, and Trotsky
    and Bukharin, on the other, actually stand on this question of
    politics and economics.

I could not help smiling, therefore, when I read Comrade
    Trotsky’s objection in his speech of December 30: “In
    his summing-up at the Eighth Congress of Soviets of the debate on
    the situation, Comrade Lenin said we ought to have less politics
    and more economics, but when he got to the trade union question he
    laid emphasis on the political aspect of the matter”
    (p. 65). Comrade Trotsky thought these words were “very much
    to the point”. Actually, however, they reveal a terrible
    confusion of ideas, a truly hopeless “ideological
    confusion”. Of course, I have always said, and will continue
    to say, that we need more economics and less politics, but if we
    are to have this we must clearly be rid of political dangersand political mistakes. Comrade Trotsky’s political
    mistakes, aggravated by Comrade Bukharin,distractour
    Party’s attention from economic tasks and
    “production” work, and,unfortunately,make us waste timeon correcting them and arguing it out
    with the syndicalist deviation (which leads to the collapse of the
    dictatorship of the proletariat), objecting to the incorrect
    approach to the trade union movement (which leads to the collapse
    of the Soviet power), and debating general “theses”,
    instead of having a practical and business-like
    “economic” discussion as to whether it was the Saratov
    millers, the Donbas miners, the Petrograd metalworkers or some
    other group that had the best results in coalescing, distributing
    bonuses in kind, and organising comrades’ courts, on the
    basis of Rudzutak’s theses, adopted by the Fifth
    All-Russia-Trade Union Conference on November 2-6.

Let us now consider what good there is in a “broad
    discussion”. Once again we find political mistakes
    distracting attention from economic tasks. I was against this
    “broad” discussion, and I believed, and still do, that
    it was a mistake—a political mistake—on Comrade
    Trotsky’s part to disrupt the work of the trade union
    commission, which ought to have held a business-like discussion. I
    believe Bukharin’s buffer group made the political mistake
    of misunderstanding the tasks of the buffer (in which case they
    had once again substituted eclecticism for dialectics), for from
    the “buffer” standpoint they should have vigorously
    opposed any broad discussion and demanded that the matter should
    be taken up by the trade union commission. Here is what came of
    this.

On December 30, Bukharin went so far as to say that “we
    have proclaimed the new and sacred slogan of workers’
    democracy, which means that questions are no longer to be
    discussed in the board-room within the corporation or at small
    meetings but are to be placed before big meetings. I insist that
    by taking the trade union issue before such a large meeting as
    this one we are not taking a step backward but forward”
    (p. 45). And this man has accused Zinoviev of spouting “hot
    air” and overdoing the democracy! I say that he himself has
    given us a lot of hot air and has shown some unexampled bungling;
    he has completely failed to understand that formal democracy must
    be subordinate to the revolutionary interest.

Trotsky is in the same boat. His charge is that “Lenin
    wants at all costs to disrupt or shelve the discussion of the
    matter in essence” (p. 65). He declares: “My reasons
    for refusing to serve on the commission were clearly stated in the
    Central Committee: until such time as I am permitted, on a par
    with all other comrades, to air these questions fully in the Party
    press, I do not expect any good to come of any cloistered
    examination of these matters, and, consequently, of work on the
    commission” (p. 69).

What is the result? Less than a month has passed since Trotsky
    started his “broad discussion” on December 25, and you
    will be hard put to find one responsible Party worker in a hundred
    who is not fed up with the discussion and has not realised its
    futility (to say no worse). For Trotsky has made the Party waste
    time on a discussion of words and bad theses, and has ridiculed as
    “cloistered” thebusiness-likeeconomic
    discussion in the commission, which was to have studied and
    verified practical experience and projected its lessons forprogressin real “production” work, in place
    of theregressfrom vibrant activity to scholastic
    exercises in all sorts of “production
    atmospheres”.

Take this famous “coalescence”. My advice on
    December 30 was that we should keep mum on this point, because we
    hadnot studiedour own practical experience, and without
    that any discussion was bound to degenerate into “hot
    air” and draw off the Party’s forcesfromeconomic work. I said it was bureaucratic projecteering for
    Trotsky to propose in his theses that from one-third to one-half
    and from one-half to two-thirds of the economic councils should
    consist of trade unionists.

For this I was upbraided by Bukharin who, I see from p. 49 of
    the report, made a point of proving to me at length and in great
    detail that “when people meet to discuss something, they
    should not act as deaf-mutes” (sic). Trotsky was
    also angry and exclaimed:

“Will every one of you please make a note
    that on this particular date Comrade Lenin described this as a
    bureaucratic evil. I take the liberty to predict that within a few
    months we shall have accepted for our guidance and consideration
    that the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions and the
    Supreme Economic Council, the Central Committee of the
    Metalworkers’ Union and the Metals Department, etc., are to
    have from one-third to one-half of their members in common”
    (p. 68).

When I read that I asked Comrade Milyutin (Deputy Chairman of
    the Supreme Economic Council) to let me have the availableprintedreports on coalescence. I said to my self: why
    not make a small start on the study of our practical experience;
    it’s so dull engaging in “general Party talk”
    (Bukharin’s expression, p. 47, which has every chance of
    becoming a catchword like “shake-up”) to no useful
    purpose, without the facts, and inventing disagreements,
    definitions and “industrial democracies”.

Comrade
      Milyutin sent me several books, includingThe Report of the
	Supreme Economic Council to the Eighth All-Russia Congress of
	Soviets(Moscow, 1920; preface dated December 19, 1920). On
      its p. 14 is a table showing workers’ participation in
      administrative bodies. Here is the table (covering only part of
      the gubernia economic councils and factories):

It will be seen that 61.6 per cent, that is, closer to
    two-thirds than to one-half, of the staff of administrative bodies
    now consists of workers. And this already proves that what Trotsky
    wrote on this matter in his theses was an exercise in bureaucratic
    projecteering. To talk, argue and write platforms about
    “one-third to one-half” and “one-half to
    two-thirds” is the most useless sort of “general Party
    talk”, which diverts time, attention and resources fromproduction work. It is empty politicking. All this while,
    a great deal of good could have been done in the commission, where
    men of experience would have refused to write any theses without a
    study of the facts, say, by polling a dozen or so “common
    functionaries” (out of the thousand), by comparing their
    impressions and conclusions with objective statistical data, and
    by making an attempt to obtain practical guidance for the future:
    that being our experience, do we go straight on, or do we make
    some change in our course, methods and approach, and how; or do we
    call a halt, for the good of the cause, and check things over and
    over again, make a few changes here and there, and so on and so
    forth.

Comrades, a real “executive” (let me also have a go
    at “production propaganda”) is well aware that even in
    the most advanced countries, the capitalists and their executives
    take years—sometimes ten and more—to study and test
    their own (and others’) practical experience, making
    innumerable starts and corrections to tailor a system of
    management, select senior and junior executives, etc., fit for
    their particular business. That was the rule under capitalism,
    which throughout the civilised world based its business practices
    onthe experience and habits of centuries. We who are
    breaking new ground must put in a long, persistent and patient
    effort to retrain men and change the old habits which have come
    down to us from capitalism, but this can only be done little by
    little. Trotsky’s approach is quite wrong. In his December
    30 speech he exclaimed: “Do or do not our workers, Party and
    trade union functionaries have any production training? Yes or no?
    I say: No” (p. 29). This is a ridiculous approach. It is
    like asking whether a division has enough felt boots: Yes or
    no?

It is safe to say that even ten years from now we shall have to
    admit that all our Party and trade union functionaries do not have
    enough production training, in much the same way as the workers of
    the Military Department, the trade unions and the Party will not
    have had enough military experience. But we have made astarton production training by having about a thousand
    workers, and trade union members and delegates take part in
    management and run factories, head offices and other bodies higher
    up the scale. The basic principle underlying “production
    training”—which is the training ofour own
    selves, of the old underground workers and professional
    journalists—is that we should start a painstaking and
    detailed study of our own practical experience, and teach others
    to do so, according to the rule: Look before you leap. The
    fundamental and absolute rule behind “production
    training” is systematic, circumspect, practical and business
    like verification of what this one thousand have done, and even
    more efficient and careful correction of their work, taking a step
    forward only when there is ample proof of the usefulness of a
    given method, system of management, proportion, selection of men,
    etc. And it is this rule that Comrade Trotsky has broken by his
    theses and approach. All his theses, his entire platform pamphlet,
    are so wrong that they have diverted the Party’s attention
    and resources from practical “production” work to a
    lot of empty talk.

Dialectics and Eclecticism“School” and “Apparatus”

Among Comrade Bukharin’s many excellent traits are his
    theoretical ability and keen interest in getting at the
    theoretical roots of every question. That is a very valuable trait
    because you cannot have a proper understanding of any mistake, let
    alone a political one, unless you dig down to its theoretical
    roots among the basic premises of the one who makes it.

Responding to this urge, Comrade Bukharin tended to shift the
    controversy into the theoretical sphere, beginning from December
    30, if not earlier.

In his speech on that day he said: “That neither the
    political nor the economic factor can be ignored is, I believe,
    absolutely incontrovertible—and that is the theoretical
    essence of what is here known as the’buffer group’ or
    its ideology “ (p. 47).

The gist of his theoretical mistake in this case is
    substitution of eclecticism for the dialectical interplay of
    politics and economics (which we find in Marxism). His theoretical
    attitude is: “on the one hand, and on the other”,
    “the one and the other”. That is
    eclecticism. Dialectics requires an all-round consideration of
    relationships in their concrete development but not a patchwork of
    bits and pieces. I have shown this to be so on the example of
    politics and economics.

That of the “buffer” has gone to reinforce the
    point. You need a buffer, and it is useful when the Party train is
    heading for a crash. No question about that at all. Bukharin has
    built up his “buffer” problem eclectically, by
    collecting odd pieces from Zinoviev and Trotsky. As a
    “buffer”, Bukharin should have decided for himself
    just where, when and how each individual or group had made their
    mistake, whether it was a theoretical mistake, one of political
    tact, factional pronouncement, or exaggeration, etc. He should
    have done that and gonehammer and tongs at everysuch
    mistake. But he has failed to understand his task of
    “buffer”, and here is good proof of it.

The Communist group of Tsektran’s Petrograd Bureau (the
    C.C. of the Railwaymen’s and Water Transport Workers’
    Union), an organisation sympathising with Trotsky, has stated its
    opinion that, “on the main issue of the trade unions’
    role in production, Comrades Trotsky and Bukharin hold views which
    are variations of one and the same standpoint”. It has
    issued Comrade Bukharin’s report in Petrograd on January
    3,1921, in pamphlet form (N. Bukharin,The Tasks of the Trade
    Unions, Petrograd, 1921). It says:

“Comrade Trotsky’s original
    formulation was that the trade union leadership should be removed
    and suitable comrades found to take their place, etc. He had
    earlier advocated a’shake-up’, but he has now
    abandoned the idea, and it is therefore quite absurd to use it as
    an argument against him” (p. 5).

I will let pass the numerous factual inaccuracies in this
    statement. (Trotsky used the term “shake-up” at the
    Fifth All-Russia Conference of Trade Unions, November 2-6. He
    mentions “selection of leadership” in Paragraph 5 of
    his theses which he submitted to the Central Committee on November
    8, and which, incidentally, some of his supporters have published
    as a leaflet. The whole of Trotsky’s pamphlet,The Role
    and Tasks of the Trade Unions, December 25, reveals the same
    kind of mentality, the same spirit as I have pointed out
    before. When and how he “abandoned” this attitude
    remains a mystery.) I am now dealing with a different matter. When
    the “buffer” is an eclectic, he passes over some
    mistakes and brings up others; he says nothing of them in Moscow
    on December 30, 1920, when addressing thousands of
    R.C.P. functionaries from all over Russia; but he brings them up
    in Petrograd on January 3, 1921. When the “buffer” is
    a dialectician, he directs the full brunt of his attack at every
    mistake he sees on either side, or on all sides. And that is
    something Bukharin does not do. He does not even try to examine
    Trotsky’s pamphlet in the light of the
    “shake-up” policy.He simply says nothing about
    it. No wonder his buffer performance has made everyone
    laugh.

To proceed. In that same Petrograd speech he says (p. 7):

“Comrade Trotsky’s mistake is
    insufficient support for the school-of-communism idea.”

During the December 30 discussion, Bukharin reasoned as
    follows:

“Comrade Zinoviev has said that the trade
    unions are a school of communism, and Trotsky has said that they
    are a technical and administrative apparatus for industrial
    management. I see no logical grounds for proof that either
    proposition is wrong; both, and a combination of both, are
    right” (p. 48).

Bukharin and his “group” or “faction”
    make the same point in their thesis 6: “On the one hand,
    they [the trade unions] are a school of communism . . . and on the
    other, they are—increasingly—a component part of the
    economic apparatus and of state administration in general”
    (Pravda, January 16).

That is where we find Comrade Bukharin’s fundamental
    theoretical mistake, which is substitution of eclecticism
    (especially popular with the authors of diverse
    “fashionable” and reactionary philosophical systems)
    for Marxist dialectics.

When Comrade Bukharin speaks of “logical” grounds,
    his whole reasoning shows that he takes—unconsciously,
    perhaps—the standpoint of formal or scholastic logic, and
    not of dialectical or Marxist logic. Let me explain this by taking
    the simple example which Comrade Bukharin himself gives. In the
    December 30 discussion he said:

“Comrades, many of you may find that the
    current controversy suggests something like this: two men come in
    and invite each other to define the tumbler on the lectern. One
    says:‘It is a glass cylinder, and a curse on anyone who says
    different.’ The other one says:‘A tumbler is a
    drinking vessel, and a curse on anyone who says
    different’”(p. 46).

The reader will see that Bukharin’s example was meant to
    give me a popular explanation of the harm of one-track thinking. I
    accept it with gratitude, and in the one-good
    turn-deserves-another spirit offer a popular explanation of the
    difference between dialectics and eclecticism.

A tumbler is assuredly both a glass cylinder and a drinking
    vessel. But there are more than these two properties, qualities or
    facets to it; there are an infinite number of them, an infinite
    number of “mediacies” and inter-relationships with the
    rest of the world. A tumbler is a heavy object which can be used
    as a missile; it can serve as a paper weight, a receptacle for a
    captive butterfly, or a valuable object with an artistic engraving
    or design, and this has nothing at all to do with whether or not
    it can be used for drinking, is made of glass, is cylindrical or
    not quite, and so on and so forth.

Moreover, if I needed a tumbler just now for drinking, it would
    not in the least matter how cylindrical it was, and whether it was
    actually made of glass; what would matter though would be whether
    it had any holes in the bottom, or anything that would cut my lips
    when I drank, etc. But if I did not need a tumbler for drinking
    but for a purpose that could be served by any glass cylinder, a
    tumbler with a cracked bottom or without one at all would do just
    as well, etc.

Formal logic, which is as far as schools go (and should go,
    with suitable abridgements for the lower forms), deals with formal
    definitions, draws on what is most common, or glaring, and stops
    there. When two or more different definitions are taken and
    combined at random (a glass cylinder and a drinking vessel), the
    result is an eclectic definition which is indicative of different
    facets of the object, and nothing more.

Dialectical logic demands that we should go further. Firstly,
    if we are to have a true knowledge of an object we must look at
    and examine all its facets, its connections and
    “mediacies”. That is something we cannot ever hope to
    achieve completely, but the rule of comprehensiveness is a
    safeguard against mistakes and rigidity. Secondly, dialectical
    logic requires that an object should be taken in development, in
    change, in “self-movement” (as Hegel sometimes puts
    it). This is not immediately obvious in respect of such an object
    as a tumbler, but it, too, is in flux, and this holds especially
    true for its purpose, use andconnectionwith the
    surrounding world. Thirdly, a full “definition” of an
    object must include the whole of human experience, both as a
    criterion of truth and a practical indicator of its connection
    with human wants. Fourthly, dialectical logic holds that
    “truth is always concrete, never abstract”, as the
    late Plekhanov liked to say after Hegel. (Let me add in
    parenthesis for the benefit of young Party members that youcannothope to become areal, intelligent
    Communist without making a study—and I meanstudy—of all of Plekhanov’s philosophical
    writings, because nothing better has been written on Marxism
    anywhere in the world.[3b])

I have not, of course, run through the whole notion of
    dialectical logic, but what I have said will do for the present. I
    think we can return from the tumbler to the trade unions and
    Trotsky’s platform.

“A school, on the one hand, and an apparatus on the
    other”, says Bukharin, and writes as much in his
    theses. Trotsky’s mistake is “insufficient support for
    the school-of-communism idea”; Zinoviev errs by being
    lukewarm on the apparatus “factor”.

Why is Bukharin’s reasoning no more than inert and empty
    eclecticism? It is because he does not even try to make an
    independent analysis, from his own standpoint, either of the whole
    course of the current controversy (as Marxism,that is,
    dialectical logic, unconditionally demands) or of the whole
    approach to the question, the whole presentation—the whole
    trend of the presentation, if you will—of the question at
    the present time and in these concrete circumstances. You do not
    see Bukharin doing that at all! His approach is one of pure
    abstraction: he makes no attempt at concrete study, and takes bits
    and pieces from Zinoviev and Trotsky. That is eclecticism.

Here is another example to clarify the picture. I know next to
    nothing about the insurgents and revolutionaries of South China
    (apart from the two or three articles by Sun Yat-sen, and a few
    books and newspaper articles I read many years ago). Since there
    are these uprisings, it is not too far-fetched to assume a
    controversy going on between Chinese No. 1, who says that the
    insurrection is the product of a most acute nation-wide class
    struggle, and Chinese No. 2, who says that insurrection is an
    art. That is all I need to know in order to write thesesà laBukharin: “On the one hand, . . . on the
    other hand”. The one has failed to reckon with the art
    “factor”, and the other, with the “acuteness
    factor”, etc. Because noconcretestudy is made ofthis particularcontroversy, question, approach, etc.,
    the result is a dead and empty eclecticism.

On the one hand, the trade unions are a school, and on the
    other, an apparatus; but they also happen to be an organisation of
    working people, an almost exclusive organisation of industrial
    workers, an organisation by industry, etc.[3c]Bukharin does not make any analysis for himself, nor does he
    produce a shred of evidence to prove why it is that we should
    consider the first two “facets” of the question or
    object, instead of the third, the fourth, the fifth, etc. That is
    why his group’s theses are an eclectic soap bubble. His
    presentation of the “school-apparatus” relationship is
    fundamentally eclectic and wrong.

The only way to view this question in the right light is to
    descend from empty abstractions to the concrete, that is, the
    present issue. Whether you take it in the form it assumed at the
    Fifth All-Russia Conference of Trade Unions, or as it was
    presented andslantedby Trotsky himself in his platform
    pamphlet of December 25, you will find that hiswholeapproach is quite wrong and that he has gone off at a tangent. He
    has failed to understand that the trade unions can and must be
    viewed as a school both when raising the question of “Soviet
    trade-unionism”, and when speaking of production propaganda
    in general, and even when considering “coalescence”
    and trade union participation in industrial management,as
    Trotsky does. On this last point, as it is presented in
    Trotsky’s platform pamphlet, the mistake lies in his failure
    to grasp that the trade unions are aschool of technical and
    administrative management of production. In the context of
    the controversy, you can not say: “a school, on the one
    hand, and something else on the other"; given Trotsky’s
    approach,the trade unions,whichever way you look at
    them,are a school. They are a school of unity,
    solidarity, management and administration, where you learn how to
    protect your interests. Instead of making an effort to comprehend
    and correct Comrade Trotsky’s fundamental mistake, Comrade
    Bukharin has produced a funny little amendment: “On the one
    hand, and on the other.”

Let us go deeper into the question. Let us see what the present
    trade unions are, as an “apparatus” of industrial
    management. We have seen from the incomplete returns that about
    900 workers—trade union members and delegates—are
    engaged in industrial management. If you multiply this number by
    10 or even by 100—if it helps to clarify your fundamental
    mistake let us assume this incredible speed of
    “advance” in the immediate future—you still have
    an insignificant proportion of those directly engaged inmanagement, as compared with the mass of six million
    trade union members. This makes it even clearer that it is quite
    wrong to look to the “leading stratum”, and talk about
    the trade unions’ role in production and industrial
    management, as Trotsky does, forgetting that 98.5 per cent (6
    million minus 90,000 equals 5,910,000 or 98.5 per cent of the
    total)are learning,and will have to continue to do
    so for a long time to come. Don’t say schoolandmanagement, sayschooI of management.

In his December 30 argument against Zinoviev, whom he accused,
    quite groundlessly and incorrectly, of denying the
    “appointments system”, that is, the Central
    Committee’s right and duty to make appointments, Comrade
    Trotsky inadvertently drew the following telltale comparison:

“Zinoviev tends to overdo the propaganda
    angle on every practical matter, forgetting that it is not only a
    source of material for agitation, but also a problem requiring an
    administrative solution” (p. 27).

Before I explain in detail thepotentialadministrative approach to the issue, let me say that Comrade
    Trotsky’s fundamental mistake is that he treats (rather,
    maltreats)the questionshe himself had brought up in his
    platform pamphlet asadministrativeones, whereastheycould be and ought to be viewedonly from the
    propaganda angle.

In effect, what are Trotsky’s good points? One
    undoubtedly good and useful point is hisproduction
    propaganda, but that is not in his theses, but in his
    speeches, specially when he forgets about his unfortunate polemics
    with the allegedly “conservative” wing of the
    trade-unionists. He would undoubtedly have done (and I believe he
    will do) a great deal of good in the trade union
    commission’s practical business, as speaker and writer, and
    as a member of the All-Russia Production Propaganda Bureau. His
    platform theses were a mistake, for through them, like a scarlet
    thread, runs the administrative approach to the
    “crisis” and the “two trends” within the
    trade unions, the interpretation of the R.C.P. Programme,
    “Soviet trade-unionism”, “production
    training” and “coalescence”. I have listed all
    the main points of Trotsky’s “platform “ and
    they all happen to be topics which, considering the material at
    Trotsky’s disposal, can be correctly approached at the
    present time only from the propaganda angle.

The state is a sphere of coercion. It would be madness to
    renounce coercion, especially in the epoch of the dictatorship of
    the proletariat, so that the administrative approach and
    “steerage” are indispensable. The Party is the leader,
    the vanguard of the proletariat, which rules directly. It is not
    coercion but expulsion from the Party that is the specific means
    of influence and the means of purging and steeling the
    vanguard. The trade unions are a reservoir of the state power, a
    school of communism and a school of management. The specific and
    cardinal thing in this sphere isnotadministration but
    the “ties” “betweenthe
    central state administration” (and, of course, the local as
    well), “the national economy and thebroad massesof the working people” (see Party Programme, economic
    section, §5, dealing with the trade unions).

The whole of Trotsky’s platform pamphlet betrays an
    incorrect approach to the problem and a misunderstanding of this
    relationship.

Let us assume that Trotsky had taken a different approach to
    this famous question of “coalescence” in connection
    with the other topics of his platform, and that his pamphlet was
    entirely devoted to a detailed investigation of, say, 90 of the
    900 cases of “coalescence” where trade union officials
    and members concurrently held elective trade union posts and
    Supreme Economic Council posts in industrial management. Let us
    say these 90 cases had been analysed together with the returns of
    a selective statistical survey, the reports of inspectors and
    instructors of Rabkrin and the People’s Commissariats
    concerned: let us say they had been analysed in the light of the
    data supplied by the administrative bodies, the results of the
    work, the headway in production, etc. That would have been a
    correct administrative approach, and would have fullyy\ indicated
    the “shake-up” line, which implies concentrating
    attention on removals, transfers, appointments and the immediate
    demands to be made on the “leading stratum”. When
    Bukharin said in his January 3 speech, published by the Tsektran
    people in Petrograd, that Trotsky had at first wanted a
    “shake-up” but had now abandoned the idea, he made
    another one of his eclectical mistakes, which is ridiculous from
    the practical standpoint and theoretically inadmissible for a
    Marxist. He takes the question in the abstract, being unable (or
    unwilling) to get down to brass tacks. So long as we, the
    Party’s Central Committee and the whole Party, continue to
    run things, that is, govern, we shall never—we
    cannot—dispense with the “shake-up”, that is,
    removals, transfers, appointments, dismissals, etc. But
    Trotsky’s platform pamphlet deals with something else, and
    does not raise the “question of practical business” at
    all. It is not this but the “trendswithin the
    trade union movement” (Trotsky’s thesis 4, end) that
    was being debated by Zinoviev and Trotsky, Bukharin and myself,
    and in fact the whole Party.

This is essentially a political question. Because of the
    substance of the case—this concrete, particular “case
    “—it is impossible to correct Trotsky’s mistake
    by means of eclectic little amendments and addenda, as Bukharin
    has been trying to do, being moved undoubted]y by the most humane
    sentiments and intensions.

There is only one answer.

First, there must be a correct solution of the political
    question of the “trends within the trade union
    movement”, the relationship between classes, between
    politics and economics, the specific role of the state, the Party,
    the trade unions, as “school” and apparatus, etc.

Second, once the correct political decision has been adopted, a
    diversified nation-wide production propaganda campaign must be
    carried through, or, rather, systematically carried forward with
    persistence and patience over a long term, under the sponsorship
    and direction of a state agency. It should be conducted in such a
    way as to cover the same ground over and over again.

Third, the “questions of practical business” must
    not be confused with trend issues which properly belong to the
    sphere ofgeneral Party talk” and broad discussions; they
    must be dealt with as practical matters in the working
    commissions, with a hearing of witnesses and a study of memoranda,
    reports and statistics. And any necessary “shake-up”
    must be carried out only on that basis and in those circumstances:
    only under a decision of the competent Soviet or Party organ, or
    of both.

Trotsky and Bukharin have produced a hodgepodge of political
    mistakes in approach, breaks in the middle of the transmission
    belts, and unwarranted and futile attacks on “administrative
    steerage”. It is now clear where the
    “theoretical” source of the mistake lies, since
    Bukharin has taken up that aspect of it with his example of the
    tumbler. His theoretical—in this case, gnosiological—
    mistake lies in his substitution of eclecticism for
    dialectics. His eclectic approach has confused him and has landed
    him in syndicalism. Trotsky’s mistake is one-track thinking,
    compulsiveness, exaggeration and obstinacy. His platform says that
    a tumbler is a drinking vessel, but this particular tumbler
    happens to have no bottom.

It remains for me to go over a few more points which must be
    dealt with to prevent misunderstanding.

Thesis 6 of Trotsky’s platform quotes Paragraph 5 of the
    economic section of the R.C.P. Programme, which deals with the
    trade unions. Two pages later, his thesis 8 says:

“Having lost the old basis of their existence, the class
    economic struggle, the trade unions. . . “ (that is wrong,
    and is a hasty exaggeration: the trade unions no longer have to
    face theclasseconomic struggle but the non-class
    “economic struggle”, which means combating
    bureaucratic distortions of the Soviet apparatus, safeguarding the
    working people’s material and spiritual interests in ways
    and means inaccessible to this apparatus, etc. This is a struggle
    they will unfortunately have to face for many more years to
    come). “The trade unions,” says Trotsky, “have,
    for various reasons, not yet succeeded in mustering the necessary
    forces and working out the necessary methods enabling them to
    solve the new task, that oforganising production”
    (Trotsky’s italics, p. 9, thesis 8), “set before them
    by the proletarian revolution and formulated in our
    Programme.”

That is yet another hasty exaggeration which is pregnant with
    grave error. The Programme does not contain any such formulation
    nor does it set the trade unions the task of “organising
    production”. Let us go over the propositions in the
    Party’s Programme as they unfold in the text:

(1)"The organisational apparatus” (but not the others)
    “of socialised industry should rely chiefly” (but not
    exclusively) “on the trade unions.” (2)"They must to
    an ever increasing degree divest themselves of the narrow
    craft-union spirit” (how? under the leadership of the Party
    and through the proletariat’s educational and other
    influence on the non-proletarian mass of working people)
    “and become large industrial associations, embracing the
    majority, and eventually all of the workers in the given
    industry.”

That is the first part of the section of the Party Programme
    dealing with the trade unions. You will have noted that it starts
    by laying down very “strictconditions”
    demanding a long sustained effort for what is to follow. And what
    follows is this:

“The trade unions being, on the strength of the laws of
    the Soviet Republic and established practice, participants”
    (note the cautious statement: participants only) “in all the
    local and central organs of industrial management, should
    eventually arrive at ade factoconcentration in their
    hands of the whole administration of the whole national economy,
    as a single economic entity” (note this: should arrive at ade factoconcentration of management not of branches of
    industry and not of industry as a whole, but of the whole national
    economy, and moreover, as an economic entity. In economic terms,
    this condition may be considered fulfilled only when the petty
    producers both in industry and agriculture account for less than
    one-half of the population and the national economy). “The
    trade unions ensuring in this way” (the way which helps to
    realise all the conditions listed earlier) “indissoluble
    ties between the central state administration, the national
    economy and the broad masses of working people, should draw the
    latter” (that is, the masses, the majority of the
    population) “into direct economic management on the widest
    possible scale. At the same time, the participation of the trade
    unions in economic management and their activity in drawing the
    broad masses into this work are the principal means of combating
    the bureaucratisation of the economic apparatus of the Soviet
    power and making possible the establishment of truly popular
    control over the results of production.”

There again, in that last sentence, we find a very cautious
    phrase: “participation in economic management"; and another
    reference to the recruitment of the broad masses as the chief (but
    not the only) means of combating bureaucratic practices; finally,
    we find a highly cautious statement: “making possible” the establishment of “popular”—that is, workers’ and peasants’,
    and not just purely proletarian—“control”.

It is obviously wrong to boil this down to the Party Programme
    “formulating” the trade unions’ task as
    “organisation of production”. And if you insist on
    this error, and write it into your platform theses, you will get
    nothing but an anti-communist, syndicalist deviation.

Incidentally, Comrade Trotsky says in his theses that
    “over the last period we have not made any headway towards
    the goal set forth in the Programme but have in fact retreated
    from it” (p. 7, thesis 6). That statement is unsupported,
    and, I think, wrong. It is no proof to say, as Trotsky did in the
    discussions, that the trade unions “themselves” admit
    this. That is not the last resort, as far as the Party is
    concerned, and, generally speaking, the proof lies only in a
    serious and objective study of a great number of facts. Moreover,
    even if such proof were forthcoming, there would remain this
    question: Why have we retreated? Is it because “many
    trade-unionists “ are “balking at the new tasks and
    methods”, as Trotsky believes, or because “we have not
    yet succeeded in mustering the necessary forces and working out
    the necessary methods” to cut short and correct certain
    unwarranted and harmful excesses of bureaucracy?

Which brings me to Bukharin’s rebuke of December 30
    (repeated by Trotsky yesterday, January 24, during our discussion
    in the Communist group of the Second Miners’ Congress) that
    we have “dropped the line laid down by the Ninth Party
    Congress” (p. 46 of the report on the December 30
    discussion). He alleged that at that Congress I had defended the
    militarisation of labour and had jeered at references to
    democracy, all of which I now “repudiate”. In his
    reply to the debate on December 30, Comrade Trotsky added this
    barb: “Lenin takes account of the fact that . . . there is a
    grouping of opposition-minded comrades within the trade
    unions” (p. 65); that I view it from the “diplomatic
    angle” (p. 69), and that there is “manoeuvring inside
    the Party groups” (p. 70), etc. Putting such a complexion on
    the case is, of course, highly flattering for Trotsky, and worse
    than unflattering for me. But let us look at the facts.

In that same discussion on December 30, Trotsky and Krestinsky
    established the fact that “as long ago as July (1920),
    Comrade Preobrazhensky had proposed to the Central Committee that
    we should switch to a new track in respect of the internal life of
    our workers’ organisations” (p. 25). In August,
    Comrade Zinoviev drafted a letter, and the Central Committee
    approved aC.C. Letteron combating red-tape and
    extending democracy. In September, the question was brought up at
    a Party conference whose decisions were endorsed by the Central
    Committee. In December, the question of combating red-tape was
    laid before the Eighth Congress of Soviets. Consequently, the
    whole Central Committee, the whole Party and the whole
    workers’ and peasants’ Republic had recognised that
    the question of the bureaucracy and ways of combating its evils
    was high on the agenda. Does any “repudiation” of the
    Ninth Congress of the R.C.P. follow from all this? Of course,
    not. The decisions on the militarisation of labour, etc., are
    incontestable, and there is no need for me at all to withdraw any
    of my jibes at the references to democracy by those who challenged
    these decisions. What does follow is that we shall be extending
    democracy in the workers’ organisations, without turning it
    into a fetish; that we shall redouble our attention to the
    struggle against bureaucratic practices; and that we shall take
    special care to rectify any unwarranted and harmful excesses of
    bureaucracy, no matter who points them out.

One final remark on the minor question of priority and
    equalisation. I said during the December 30 discussion that
    Trotsky’s formulation of thesis 41 on this point was
    theoretically wrong, because it implied priority in production and
    equalisation in consumption. I replied that priority implied
    preference and that that was nothing unless you also had it in
    consumption. Comrade Trotsky reproached me for
    “extraordinary forgetfulness” and
    “intimidation” (pp. 67 and 68), and I am surprised to
    find that he has not accused me also of manoeuvring, diplomatic
    moves, etc. He has made “concessions” to my
    equalitarian line, but I have attacked him.

Actually, however, anyone who takes an interest in Party
    affairs, can turn to indisputable Party documents: the November
    resolution of the C.C. Plenum, point 4, and Trotsky’s
    platform pamphlet, thesis 41. However “forgetful” I
    may be, and however excellent Comrade Trotsky’s memory, it
    is still a fact that thesis 41 contains a theoretical error, which
    the C.C. resolution of November 9 does not. The resolution says:
    “While recognising the necessity of keeping to the principle
    of priority in carrying out the economic plan, the Central
    Committee, in complete solidarity with the decisions of the last
    All-Russia Conference (September), deems it necessary to effect a
    gradual but steady transition to equality in the status of various
    groups of workers and their respective trade unions, all the while
    building up the organisation on the scale of the union as a
    whole.” That is clearly aimed against Tsektran, and it is
    quite impossible to put any other construction on the exact
    meaning of the resolution. Priority is here to stay. Preference is
    still to be given to enterprises, trade unions, trusts and
    departments on the priority list (in regard to fulfilment of the
    economic plan), but at the same time, the “equalitarian
    line”—which was supported not by “Comrade Lenin
    alone”, but was approvedby the Party Conference and the
    Central Committee, that is, the entire Party—makes this
    clear-cut demand: get on with the gradual but steadytransitionto equalisation. That Tsektran failed to carry
    out this C.C. resolution (November) is evident from the Central
    Committee’s December resolution (on Trotsky and
    Bukharin’s motion), which contains another reminder of the
    “principles of ordinary democracy”. The theoretical
    error in thesis 41 is that it says: equalisation in consumption,
    priority in production. That is an economic absurdity because it
    implies a gap between production and consumption. I did not
    say—and could never have said—anything of the sort. If
    you don’t need a factory, close it down. Close down all the
    factories that are not absolutely essential, and give preference
    to those that are. Give preference to, say, transport. Most
    certainly. But the preference must not be overdone, as it was in
    Tsektran’s case, which was why theParty(and not
    just Lenin) issued this directive:get on with the
    gradualbut steadytransitionto equality.

      And Trotsky has no one but himself to blame for having come
      out—after the November Plenary Meeting, which gave a
      clear-cut and theoretically correct solution—with a
      factional pamphlet on “the two trends” and proposed a
      formulation in his thesis 41 which is wrong in economic
      terms.

Today, January 25, it is exactly one month since Comrade
    Trotsky’s factional statement. It is now patent that this
    pronouncement, inappropriate in form and wrong in essence, has
    diverted the Party from its practical economic and production
    effort into rectifying political and theoretical mistakes. But,
    it’s an ill wind, as the old saying goes.

Rumour has it that some terrible things have been said about
    the disagreements on the Central Committee. Mensheviks and
    Socialist-Revolutionaries undoubtedly shelter (and have sheltered)
    behind the opposition, and it is they who are spreading the
    rumours, incredibly malicious formulations, and inventions of all
    sorts to malign the Party, put vile interpretations on its
    decisions, aggravate conflicts and ruin its work. That is a
    political trick used by the bourgeoisie, including the
    petty-bourgeois democrats, the Mensheviks and the
    Socialist-Revolutionaries, who, for very obvious reasons,
    hate—and cannot help hating—the Bolsheviks’
    guts. Every intelligent member of the Party is familiar with this
    political trick, and knows its worth.

Because of the disagreements on the Central Committee, it had
    to appeal to the Party, and the discussions that followed clearly
    revealed the essence and scope of these disagreements. That killed
    the rumours and the slander. The Party learns its lessons and is
    tempered in the struggle against factionalism, a new malaise (it
    is new in the sense that after the October Revolution we had
    forgotten all about it). Actually, it is an old malaise, with
    relapses apparently bound to occur over the next few years, but
    with an easier cure now well in sight.

The Party is learning not to blow up its disagreements. Let me
    quote at this point Comrade Trotsky’s correct remark about
    Comrade Tomsky: “I have always said —even when the
    polemic against Comrade Tomsky was at its bitterest—that it
    is quite clear to me that only men with his experience and
    authority ought to be our trade union leaders. I told this to the
    Party group of the Fifth Conference of the Trade Unions, and
    repeated it at the Zimin theatre a few days ago. Ideological
    struggle within the Party does not mean mutual ostracism but
    mutual influence”[4](p. 34 of the report on the December
    30 discussion). The Party will naturally apply this correct
    approach to Comrade Trotsky himself.

During the discussion it was Comrade Shlyapnikov and his group,
    the so-called Workers’ Opposition, who showed the most
    pronounced syndicalist trend. This being an obvious deviation from
    communism and the Party, we shall have to reckon with it, talk it
    over, and make a special propaganda effort to explain the error of
    these views and the danger of making such mistakes. Comrade
    Bukharin, who actually coined the syndicalist phrase
    “mandatory nominations” (by trade unions to management
    bodies) tries to vindicate himself in today’s issue ofPravda, but I’m afraid his line of defence is
    highly ineffective and quite wrong. He wants us to know, you see,
    that he deals with the role of the Party in his other points. I
    should think so! If it were otherwise it would have been more than
    just amistake, requiring correction and allowing some
    slight rectification: it would have been withdrawal from the
    Party. When you say “mandatory nominations” but
    neglect to add, there and then, that they arenotmandatory for the Party, you have a syndicalist deviation, and
    that isincompatible with communism and the Party
    Programme If you add: “mandatory butnotfor the
    Party” you are giving the non-Party workers a false sense of
    having some increase in their rights, whereas in fact there will
    be no change at all. The longer Comrade Bukharin persists in his
    deviation from communism—a deviation that is wrong
    theoretically and deceptive politically—the more deplorable
    will be the fruits of his obstinacy. You cannot maintain an
    untenable proposition. The Party does not object to the extension
    of the rights of the non-Party workers in general, but a little
    reflection will show what can and what cannot be done in this
    respect.

In the discussion by the Communist group of the Second
    All-Russia Miners’ Congress, Shlyapnikov’s platform
    was defeated despite the backing it got from Comrade Kiselyov, who
    commands special prestige in that union: our platform won 137
    votes, Shlyapnikov’s, 62, and Trotsky’s, 8. The
    syndicalist malaise must and will be cured.

In this one month, Petrograd, Moscow and a number of provincial
    towns have shown that the Party responded to the discussion and
    has rejected Comrade Trotsky’s wrong line by an overwhelming
    majority. While there may have been some vacillation “at the
    top” and “in the provinces”, in the committees
    and in the offices, the rank-and-file membership—the mass of
    Party workers—came out solidly against this wrong line.

Comrade Kamenev informed me of Comrade Trotsky’s
    announcement, during the discussion in the Zamoskvorechye District
    of Moscow on January 23, that he was withdrawing his platform and
    joining up with the Bukharin group on a new
    platform. Unfortunately, I heard nothing of this from Comrade
    Trotsky either on January 23 or 24, when he spoke against me in
    the Communist group of the Miners’ Congress. I don’t
    know whether this is due to another change in Comrade
    Trotsky’s platform and intentions, or to some other
    reason. In any case, his January 23 announcement shows that the
    Party, without so much as mustering all its forces, and with only
    Petrograd, Moscow and a minority of the provincial towns going on
    record, has corrected Comrade Trotsky’s mistake promptly and
    with determination.

The Party’s enemies had rejoiced too soon. They have not
    been able—and will never be able—to take advantage of
    some of the inevitable disagreements within the Party to inflict
    harm on it and on the dictatorship of the proletariat in
    Russia.

January 25, 1921

[1]Lenin began writing the pamphlet on January 21 or 22, 1921, in
    Gorki where he was taking a rest. Upon his return to Moscow on
    January 22, he handed the greater part of the pamphlet to his
    secretary for typing. He finished the work on January 25 and had
    it sent to the printer’s. Late on January 26, C.C. members
    who were going to attend local discussions of the trade
    unions’ role and tasks were given copies of the printed
    pamphlet, while the rest of the copies were ready on January
    27.

[2]Petrogradskaya Pravda(Petrograd Truth)—a daily published from April 2, 1918, as the organ of
    the Bolshevik Central and Petrograd Party Committees. Since
    January 1924, it has been appearing asLeningradskaya
    Pravda.

[3]V. I. Zoff’s circular of May 3, 1920, was published in theBulleten Mariinskogo Oblastnogo Upravlenia Vodnogo
    Transporta(Bulletin of the Mariinsky Regional Water
    Transport Administration) No. 5, 1920. It ran: “A
    great change is about to occur in the life of water transport:
    primitive methods, committee treadmill, haphazard work and anarchy
    are on the way out. Water transport is becoming a state
    enterprise, headed by political commissars with appropriate
    powers. Committees, trade unions and elected delegates will no
    longer have the power to interfere in technical and administrative
    matters.”

[3b]By the way, it would be a good thing, first,
    if the current edition of Plekhanov’s works contained a
    special volume or volumes of all his philosophical articles, with
    detailed indexes, etc., to be included in a series of standard
    textbooks on communism; secondly I think the workers’ state
    must demand that professors of philosophy should have a knowledge
    of Plekhanov’s exposition of Marxist philosophy and ability
    to impart it to their students. But all that is a digression from
    “propaganda” to
    “administration”—Lenin.

[3c]Incidentally, here again Trotsky makes a
    mistake. He thinks that an industrial union is designed to control
    industry. That is wrong. When you say that a union is an
    industrial one you mean that it admits to membership workers in
    one industry, which is inevitable at the present level of
    technology and culture (in Russia and
    elsewhere).—Lenin.

The order was an example of administration by
    injunction and bureaucratic practices, which Tsektran’s
    leadership was introducing, and was evidence of their
    misunderstanding of the trade unions’ role in getting
    transport back on its feet. The trade unions were equated with
    outdated army committees, and barred by order from taking part in
    improving water transport operations.

[4]On December 24, 1920, in what used to be the Zimin theatre,
    Trotsky gave a report on the trade unions tasks in production at a
    joint meeting of trade union activists and delegates to the Eighth
    All-Russia Congress of Soviets, called by the Central Committee of
    the Joint Union of Rail and Water Transport Workers. It started
    the open Party discussion on the trade unions.